Archive for the ‘November 10’ Category

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Haggai 2:2-9 or Isaiah 62:6-12

Psalm 37:1-11

1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Matthew 25:1-13

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God is powerful, just, merciful, and trustworthy. We know this because the mighty acts of God indicate those qualities. These acts of God include ending the Babylonian Exile and resurrecting Jesus.

Such grace demands a faithful response. God is with us; are we with God? While you, O reader, ponder that, think about this, also: “you” in Matthew 25:13 and 1 Corinthians 15:58 is plural. If we are to interpret these passages correctly, we must assign the proper weight to collective responsibility.

As we labor faithfully in God’s service, may we never lose hope; our work is not in vain, regardless of appearances sometimes. One might think, for example, of the prophet Jeremiah, who had just one follower–Baruch the scribe. Yet the Book of Jeremiah continues to speak to many people.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS

THE FEAST OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, ANGLICAN PRIEST

THE FEAST OF HENRY LASCALLES JENNER, ANGLICAN BISHOP OF DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

Psalm 119:169-176

Acts 27:1-2, 7-38

John 12:37-43

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Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.

–John 12:42-43, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)

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Which glory do we seek?

The Psalmist made his choice, for he endured persecution because of it. He acknowledged both his faithfulness and his sinfulness.

Jesus made his choice, which led to his crucifixion.

St. Paul the Apostle made his choice, which led to many hardships, including shipwrecks and his execution.

Koheleth’s advice regarding good works is timeless. Do not permit uncertainty to detract oneself from doing the right thing, we read. Following that counsel is one way to seek the glory of God as well as the benefit of others. Heeding that advice is a fine choice to make.

Which glory do we seek?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 21, 2017 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA, JESUIT

THE FEAST OF CARL BERNHARD GARVE, GERMAN MORAVIAN MINISTER, LITURGIST, AND HYMN WRITER

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Nahum 2:1-13 or Isaiah 48:1-22

Psalm 71:15-24

Matthew 27:31b-56 or Mark 15:20b-44 or Luke 23:33-49 or John 19:17-30

Romans 13:1-7; 14:13-23

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Romans 13:1-7 is a troublesome passage. Should one always submit to government? Some of my heroes from the past include those who helped slaves escape to freedom in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and sheltered Jews or helped them escape in defiance of the Third Reich. Besides, merely obeying law is what Kohlberg called Conventional Morality, which is not the highest form of morality on that scale, nor should it be.

Anyhow, reading Romans 13:1-7 on the same day with the crucifixion of Jesus seems ironic.

The readings, taken together, point toward mercy. Even the judgment of God, as in Nahum 2:1-13, exists in the context of mercy for the rescued. The mighty acts of God also testify to mercy. And the death of Jesus does too. One should, of course, complete that story with the resurrection, or else one will have a dead Jesus perpetually. Sometimes mercy requires defiance of civil authority; so be it.

For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.

–Deuteronomy 15:11, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)

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Deuteronomy 15:11 follows two pivotal verses:

There shall be no needy among you–since the LORD your God will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion–if only you heed the LORD your God and take care to keep all this instruction that I enjoin upon you this day.

–Deuteronomy 15:4-5, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)

“If only” is a major condition in that passage.

The readings from Deuteronomy acknowledge the reality of the presence of needy people and provide culturally specific ways to minimize the social problem. These include:

Forgiving debts of Hebrews (but not for foreigners) and the freeing of servants every seventh year;

Refraining from exploiting strangers, widows, and orphans;

Leaving olives on trees and grapes in vineyards for the poor to pick; and

Leaving grain in the fields for the poor to glean.

Examples change according to the location and time, but the principle to care for the less fortunate on the societal and individual levels is constant.

Failure to obey these laws was among the charges Hebrews prophets made against their society. The Temple system at the time of Jesus exploited the poor and promoted collaboration with the Roman Empire and a form of piety dependent upon wealth. The story of the cursed fig tree in Mark 11 uses the fig tree as a symbol for Israel and the cursing of the plant as an allegory of our Lord and Savior’s rejection of the Temple system, for the two parts of the reading from Mark 11 function as bookends for the cleansing of the Temple.

And when the chief priests and scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.

–Mark 11:19, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)

Therefore I find a fitting segue to the pericope from Hebrews 9, with its theme of cleansing from sin by blood. (Let us never give the Resurrection of Jesus short shrift, for, without the Resurrection, we have a perpetually dead Jesus.) Jesus died because of, among other reasons, the threat he posed to the political-religious Temple system, the shortcomings of which he criticized. The actual executioners were Romans, whose empire took the law-and-order mentality to an extreme. Our Lord and Savior was dangerous in the eyes of oppressors, who acted. God used their evil deeds for a redemptive purpose, however. That sounds like grace to me.

If only more societies and governments heeded the call for economic justice. If only more religious institutions sought ways to care effectively for the poor and to reduce poverty rates. If only more people recognized the image of God in the marginalized and acted accordingly. If only more governments and societies considered violence to be the last resort and refrained from using it against nonviolent people. If only…, the world would be a better place.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 6, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT VINCENTIA GEROSA AND BARTHOLOMEA CAPITANIO, COFOUNDERS OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF LOVERE

THE FEAST OF ISAIAH, BIBLICAL PROPHET

THE FEAST OF JAN HUS, PROTO-PROTESTANT MARTYR

THE FEAST OF OLUF HANSON SMEBY, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER

As I read the lessons I wondered what I could write that I have not covered many times already. The tone of the assigned passages fits the them of the church year well, for lectionaries tend to take an apocalyptic turn the last three or four weeks before Advent. The theme of God destroying the sinful old order before replacing it with the Kingdom of God fully realized is quite old, as is the call to repent. But how many times can one repeat the theology of repenting–turning around or changing one’s mind–without sounding like the most scratched of records and tiring of saying the same old thing again and again?

Here is something to consider: we Christians need to accept the reality that Jesus was not always nice. He seems so nice in illustrations from Bibles for children, but the canonical Gospels attribute many harsh words to him. And judgment is as much a part of spiritual reality as is forgiveness. Most of the readings for these days focus on judgment, but the possibility of forgiveness is present in some of them. A plea for divine judgment against one’s adversaries, such as we find in Psalm 70 and many other psalms, is an understandable and familiar prayer. I have uttered something like it many times. Yet such attitudes will not aid or abet the arrival of the fully realized Kingdom of God or the partially realized one.

God is not always nice. Jesus was not always nice. And we are not always nice. Furthermore, we do not understand God or Jesus much of the time, but doing so is not necessary. We can, however, leave the judging to God and strive, by grace, to live mercifully and compassionately. That proves quite difficult often, does it not?

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Jeremiah 23:1-20

Psalm 19 (Morning)

Psalms 81 and 113 (Evening)

Matthew 25:14-30

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See, a time is coming–declares the LORD–when I will raise up a true branch of David’s line. He shall reign as king and prosper and he shall do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah shall be delivered and Israel shall dwell secure. And this is the name by which he shall be called:

The LORD is our Vindicator.

–Jeremiah 23:5-6, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures

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Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:18-25:7) had been the last King of Judah. He had rebelled against his Chaldean overlords and paid the stiff, brutal price for doing so. Thus it is appropriate that, in the prophecy of Jeremiah, the name of the good, future leader from the Davidic line is, in Hebrew, a play on the name “Zedekiah,” only reversed. That name in English is:

“Yahweh-is-our-Saving-Justice” (The New Jerusalem Bible);

“The LORD is our Vindicator” (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures); and

“The LORD is our Righteousness” (The Revised English Bible).

That name, transliterated from Hebrew, is YHVH Tzidkenu, according to page 972 of The Jewish Study Bible (2004). The Hebrew word means both “righteousness” and “deliverance,” as in vindication or salvation.

I find the intersection of lectionaries fascinating, for, as I write through them, one cross-fertilizes he other in my brain. Vindication as redemption came up in material I covered in the previous post, one based on the Revised Common Lectionary. As I reported there, one definition of “vindicate” is:

To justify or prove the worth of, especially in the light of later developments.

—The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d. Ed. (1996)

Given the repeated pronouncements of impending doom in the Book of Jeremiah through Chapter 22, one might wonder what the new development is. Perhaps the development just seems new from a human perspective. Yes, judgment and doom will ensue, but mercy will follow.

The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity as Jesus of Nazareth constituted one form of mercy. Yet with it came an element of judgment also. Both exist in the Parable of the Talents. A talent was a large sum of money–as much as a day laborer would earn in fifteen years. The rich man gave the three servants no instructions to invest, so the servant with only one talent did not violate any formal rule when he stored it in the ground. Yet he missed the point, which was to do something which increased value.

This parable exists in the shadow of the Second Coming of Jesus, at least in subsequent interpretation. (I know of at least one relatively orthodox New Testament scholar who insists that YHWH, not Jesus, returns in the parable.) The point remains unaffected, however: What have we done for God? We are supposed to hear then do; that is the call of discipleship. If we do that, God will vindicate us–redeem us–deliver us–save us–be our righteousness. If we do not, judgment will follow. But, after that, there is mercy for many, especially descendants. The promise of Jeremiah 23:5-6 is that there will be vindication–redemption–deliverance–salvation.

Why not act for God now?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 3, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MORAND OF CLUNY, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF SAINTS LIPHARDUS OF ORLEANS AND URBICIUS OF MEUNG, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOTS

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The root word for “redeem” descends from the Latin verb meaning “to buy.” Thus, if Christ has redeemed us, he has bought us.

The root word for “vindicate” descends from the Latin word meaning “avenger.” One definition of “vindicate,” according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d. Ed. (1996), is:

To justify or prove the worth of, especially in the light of later developments.

Job, in the book, which bears his name, had confidence in God’s vindication of him. The author of Psalm 17 wrote in a similar line of thought.

Sometimes we want God to do for us more than we want to do for God’s glory. Thus we might neglect a task (such as rebuilding the Temple in Haggai 1). No surviving Jew about 2500 years ago recalled the splendor of Solomon’s Temple. It was a splendor created by high taxes and forced labor, but those facts did not occur in writing in Haggai 1. Nevertheless, the call for a Second Temple remained. And the Sadducees in the reading from Luke asked an insincere and irrelevant question about levirate marriage and the afterlife. They sought to vindicate themselves, not find and answer to a query.

Knowing sound teaching can prove difficult. How much is flawed tradition and how much is sound tradition? I have been adding many of the sermon outlines of George Washington Barrett (1873-1956), my great-grandfather, at TAYLOR FAMILY POEMS AND FAMILY HISTORY WRITINGS (http://taylorfamilypoems.wordpress.com/). According to him, my fondness for rituals detracts from true spirituality, the fact that my Rector is female constitutes a heresy, and even my rare alcoholic drink is sinful. I label his positions on these matters as of his time and subculture, not of God. I am myself, not my great-grandfather. Yet certain basics remain indispensable. The lordship of Christ is among them.

Cultural and subcultural biases aside, may we cling securely to Jesus, our Redeemer, Defender, and Vindicator, whose Advent we anticipate liturgically and otherwise. May we want more to do things for his glory than we want him to do for us.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 3, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MORAND OF CLUNY, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF SAINTS LIPHARDUS OF ORLEANS AND URBICIUS OF MEUNG, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOTS